My friend and I are experts at smuggling food into the movie theater. First, we make sure she has her big Juicy purse that looks like a bowling ball bag. Then we head over to Target to get our treats. We usually get some kind of normal boxed candy, but we've also smuggled in ice cream (from Dairy Queen and those bite-sized Dips), chips, pop and even Starbucks coffee once (I'm especially proud of that).

I'm a sucker for extra-buttery popcorn. But! Just across the Rio Grande, in Reynosa, Mexico, there's a great "VIP" movie theater that serves sushi and delicatessen foods -- all for roughly the same prices as a tub of popcorn on this side of the border. I saw The Happening there last weekend and munched on a swell three-cheese croissant. It was probably more satisfying than was the movie.

My friend and I once had to smuggle the remains of our dinner from the restaurant across the street to the arthouse theater to catch the movie. I don't remember exactly what I had, except that I got a lot of tomato sauce on my denim jacket (the good news - tomato does indeed wash out of denim, if treated right away). I still don't know how I didn't get kicked out or asked to leave just based on the aroma.

Janice, your tomato sauce stain story reminds me of a time when a friend of mine, having discovered upon her first bite that her hot dog wasn't quite as tasty as she'd hoped, shoved the whole hot dog, ketchup and mustard and all, into her pocket for the duration of the film. She was wearing white jeans. I still can't fathom why she didn't just put it on the floor...

If by myself then, if I get anything at all, it's most likely I would smuggle in maltesers (the supermarkets nearby sell them so much cheaper than the cinema does) or if I go to this certain cinema in melbourne that has a chocolate store across the way I will go in there and get a bag of mixed chocolate duds (the bag has milk/white/dark combination) because they're so delicious. Usually with chocolate I just have a bottle of water with me though.

Now I've got a craving for them.

Also, if I eat popcorn I will be finding it in my teeth for days, no matter how much I brush my teeth.

I can't pay for movie food anymore. Too damn expensive. Usually I'll go without, or (if I'm feeling particularly ambitious) I'll go to the local CVS before the movie starts and stock up. But I'm just gangster like that...

My friend and I snuck in little mini-bar bottles of Bailey's Irish Cream into "Lady in the Water." Not necessarily in anticipation of it being terrible, though the Bailey's did end up helping us get through that mess of a movie. We're not alkies, though...right?

The weirdest non-alcoholic thing I ever smuggled into the movies was probably fried oysters...we had just come from dinner.